Friday, April 5, 2013

Out of nowhere, it seems, along came Beserkley Records - and the Beserkley Chartbusters in particular. The original album featured the label's first four signings namely, Earth Quake, Greg Kihn, The Rubinoos and Jonathan Richman & The Modem Lovers.

One Matthew 'King' Kaufman and Steve Levine had formed the label in collusion with Berkeley based hard rock outfit Earth Quake. Released in the UK initially under license to the United Artists label, under the auspices of Andrew Lauder (the man who signed Brinsley Schwarz, the Flamin' Groovies and ultimately, the Stranglers), the album quickly became a firm favourite amongst disaffected pop kids, and in it's own way, became a kind of Stateside mirror of what Stiff Records would become.

Label boss Matthew 'King' Kaufman, in association with experienced CBS studio engineer Glen Kolotkin quickly developed a distinctive sound and feel to Beserkley recordings. Most of the Beserkley label albums were cut at the CBS Studios on Folsom Street, San Francisco, which aided in the undoubted sense of continuity in sound from album to album.

This sound tended to feature drums with a slight amount of presence echo, a very upfront vocal, and (with the exception of Earth Quake!) relatively distortion-free. Guitars were played at low volume in the studio, but a combo feel was preserved, the sound dean without being clinical. This compilation features all of the tracks from the original Beserkley Chartbusters album, plus choice cuts from the subsequent 'Beserkley's Back' compendium, and a live double album, “Bezerk times”, taken from a German TV recording.